I'm overhauling my C10, and I thought I would replace the pinion seal and axle seals, but after reading about it in the manual, I don't think I can, because of all the speciality tools required. Is there a way to replace the pinion seal with out the speciality tools?
Pay to have it professionally done. The slightest misalignment of parts when reinstalling will eventually cost you an entire rear end.
Replacing the axle seals is a piece of cake. Doing the pinion seal is not really as tough as it is made out to be but you probably will need a good impact wrench and some careful workmanship. Just did this to mine not long ago. Mark the exact position of the pinion nut relative to the pinion threads before removal. It should take a good bunch of impacting to get the nut off, if it doesn't and your nut was already slightly loose you're in trouble with this method. After changing the seal you want to get the nut back on (with Loc Tite of course)to the original position. Once again it took me a heck of a lot of impacting (good I-R wrench too!) to get the nut back into place. Don't go too far with it! You will be compressing a "crush" sleeve. The main tool that would help to get this more exact would be to measure the before & after turning torque of the pinion with a inch-pound torque wrench. Bruce
